On Being with Krista Tippett

And his newest book, This Is Your Mind on Plants, delves into the ordinary ways in which we have integrated a relationship with mind-altering plants, caffeine being exhibit A, into our basic lives and our social functioning.

And of course, this has been a great strategy for the coffee and tea plant, pretty obscure plants in obscure parts of the world that now circumnavigate the world.

Michael Pollan's latest bestselling book is This Is Your Mind on Plants.

And his newest book, This Is Your Mind on Plants, delves into the ordinary ways in which we have integrated a relationship with mind-altering plants, caffeine being exhibit A, into our basic lives and our social functioning.

And that's how I came to understand spiritual experience. It's deep connection. And it might be with God for some people, but for me, it's with nature. It's with music. It's with all these things that I merged with when this barrier came down.

Michael Pollan's latest bestselling book is This Is Your Mind on Plants.

Then each person who had a name for God looked at the others who had a different name. They looked into God's mirror and saw their own faces and the faces of all the others. And they called out their names for God: source of life, creator of light, shepherd, maker of peace, my rock, healer, redeemer, ancient one, comforter, mother, father, friend, all at the same time. At that moment, the people knew that all the names for God were good and no name was better than another. Then all at once their voices came together and they called God one. Everyone listened, most of all, God.

She writes, then each person who had a name for God looked at the others who had a different name. They looked into God's mirror and saw their own faces and the faces of all the others. And they called out their names for God, source of life, creator of light, shepherd, maker of peace, my rock, healer, redeemer, ancient one, comforter, mother, father, friend, all at the same time. At that moment, the people knew that all the names for God were good and no name was better than another. Then all at once their voices came together and they called God one. Everyone listened, most of all, God.

I feel like in the book I wrote on Beauty, I was trying to say that one of the huge confusions in our times is to mistake glamour for Beauty.

That was the practice that kept us alive, helped us to survive. And The Miracle of Mindfulness was written for our social workers first in Vietnam because they were living in a situation where the danger of dying was there every day.

What is the Vietnamese word that you're translating as mindfulness? What are the connotations of that, I wonder? Chanh niem.

Chanh niem means true mindfulness. And niem means your mind fully present in the here and the now.

Your mindfulness is when you are mindful, you are fully alive, you are fully present. You can get in touch with the wonders of life that can nourish you and heal you. And you are stronger, you are more solid in order to handle the suffering inside of you and around you.

It is in my heart when I use it. Because when you breathe in, your mind comes back to your body and then you become fully aware that you are alive, that you are a miracle and everything you touch could be a miracle.

That was the practice that kept us alive, helped us to survive. And The Miracle of Mindfulness was written for our social workers first in Vietnam because they were living in a situation where the danger of dying was there every day.

So out of compassion, out of the willingness to help them to continue their work, The Miracle of Mindfulness was written as a manual practice. And after that, many friends in the West, they think that it is helpful for them.

It is in my heart when I use it. Because when you breathe in, your mind comes back to your body. And then you become fully aware that you are alive, that you are a miracle.

She didn't know that the sound of a stream sounded different from the sound of the ocean or even the sound of rain because she only knew about the hearing world from what the hearing world had told her.

And so I reached over and I normally have a digital handheld recorder to take notes at night. I know I can't wake up a deaf person if I'm taking notes. And on instinct, I knew she was about to tell me something and so I pushed record.

On the days when I believe, the sun streaks across these East Tennessee hills, showing me that green isn't one color but a million. The infinite deep blue of the sky feels less like an endless void ready to swallow me whole than an open and generous invitation beckoning all of us who are prone to wander.

On the days when I believe, the raucous laughter of my kids sounds like the prelude to a grander symphony, a promise of unadulterated joy to come.

On the days when I believe, I regard the tulip tree outside my kitchen window and learn from it. Rooted but flexible, it adjusts to the seasons, offering its abundant nectar to bees and butterflies during times of flowering and then seeds in shade to birds and squirrels after that.

On the days when I believe, I feel enfolded in a story so much greater than my own. It's a story that knits together a thousand generations of saints, which is to say folks like you and me who wrestle with their questions and their doubts, who interrogate the systems and structures of the society around them, who search for a way to make sense of it all, and who wonder whether they belong and whether they're loved.

It is nearly impossible to believe God shrinking down to the size of a zygote implanted in the soft lining of a woman's womb. God growing fingers and toes, God kicking and hiccuping in utero, God inching down the birth canal and entering this world covered in blood, perhaps into the steady waiting arms of a midwife.

On the days when I believe, the sun streaks across these East Tennessee hills, showing me that green isn't one color but a million. The infinite deep blue of the sky feels less like an endless void ready to swallow me whole than an open and generous invitation beckoning all of us who are prone to wander.

On the days when I believe, I feel enfolded in a story so much greater than my own. It's a story that knits together a thousand generations of saints, which is to say folks like you and me who wrestle with their questions and their doubts, who interrogate the systems and structures of the society around them, who search for a way to make sense of it all, and who wonder whether they belong and whether they're loved.

It is nearly impossible to believe God shrinking down to the size of a zygote implanted in the soft lining of a woman's womb. God growing fingers and toes. God kicking and hiccuping in utero.

In hindsight, I see that it was my privilege that protected me from the sharpest edges of my own theology. I'm white. I am straight. In my younger years, I served as a poster child for the most popular and protected religion in the country, in a town where my brand of the faith happened to dominate.

On Those Days and Nights, when my most honest answer to the question, why are you a Christian? is just, I don't know, why not? That might seem like a paltry and pale version of yes. But it is a yes nonetheless.

The Children's Moon is the moon that you see sometimes in the morning. You see a faint moon in the sky.

In my navy shirtwaist dress and three inch heels, my pearl clip-ons and newly red rinsed curls, I smoothed on lipstick. Lipstick marked my girls, saluted and held thumbs up to my darling Mel, and drove myself to school for the first day.

Over the schoolyard, a silver lozenge dissolved into the morning's blue cauldron. Enter 27-year-old white children. Look, children, I said as they found their desks. The Children's Moon, a special good luck sign.

We pledged allegiance and silently prayed. George Washington watched sternly from his frame. I turned to the blackboard and wrote my name. I thought I heard, she's the real teacher's maid. I thought I heard echoes of history.

But when I turned, every child in the room had one hand up asking, what is The Children's Moon?

In my navy shirtwaist dress and three-inch heels, my pearl clip-ons and newly red-rinsed curls, I smoothed on lipstick. Lipstick marked my girls, saluted and held thumbs up to my darling Mel, and drove myself to school for the first day. For the first day.